If you’re new in planting a garden, and you want to grow as big volume of food as possible, in as little space as possible, the plants that will give you the biggest harvests are: Tomatoes, Summer squash, Peppers, Green beans. Potatoes, onions and garlic are also good because they can be planted around tomatoes and other stuff too, but the biggest producers are tomatoes, squash, peppers and green beans! These plants, after they’re established, can go on to give out almost unlimited amount of food, for as long as the weather allows them to continue producing.
I believe I managed to store enough food for the winter solely thanks to tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Not only zuchinni can also make a winter squash in an emergency, but it can be dried and added to preserves, and frozen and made into zuchinni bread! Tomatoes are the easiest food to preserve because they’re so acidic, they can even help you preserve other food, by having it submerged in tomato sauce and closed into jars!
Green beans, other than being a great and plentiful summer crop, can be dried and canned and frozen, they also keep producing for as long as the plants are alive.
Other crops like, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, onion greens, potatoes, lettuce, dry beans, peas, carrots, leeks, celery, they’re awesome to have, but when they give you produce, they’re likely to do it once, or twice, and that is the maximum you can get out of that space where you plant them. They’re a life saver during the time summer crops wont grow! But the big producers will continue giving you harvests over and over again, as long as they stay healthy and undamaged by weather.
Greens like kale, swiss chard, chives, spinach, can also give you multiple harvests, and they’re great to grow in the colder months, but you still get nowhere near the volume of food that you can get from the summer crops. And there’s also big summer producers like cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, eggplants, that can give you loads of produce, but these also take a LOT of space.
Tomatoes, squash, peppers and green beans are, I think, the absolute essential garden crops to grow. Also potatoes if you have the extra space to plant them.